


Subjective Siblings

by BlackPencilKitten



Series: Loqi Week 2018 [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dual MT!AU, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Prince!Loqi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15958127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackPencilKitten/pseuds/BlackPencilKitten
Summary: Ever since he saw identical figures of himself in equally identical containment cells, Loqi wondered if he had a brother or five or twenty. Although his duties as a prince constantly hindered his progress, he never stopped searching for a definite answer of either yes or no.Finally, after so many years and so many conflicting facts, he gets it.





	Subjective Siblings

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 Prompts: Family and/or Niflheim Prince Loqi.
> 
> Credit goes to my dear friend Grif for helping supply ideas for this.

The first thing Loqi remembered hearing related to family was Verstael saying he was his ‘father’.

Father, father, father, that’s what he said most as he led Loqi away from his containment cell. Even then, he was curious as to why there were many other cells, all holding figures that looked oddly similar to him. When he opened his mouth to ask, though, he was immediately shushed, his father saying he’d get to his questions right after a few tests.

He never did.

After that, Loqi was introduced to another man who called himself his ‘father’, a man in red and white who radiated an aura of  _ danger _ . Not as much as Verstael did, who wore a white labcoat, rubber gloves, and creepy goggles, but Aldercapt was definitely second place. They exchanged the word ‘son’ and ‘subject’ so many times, it confused him as to exactly  _ what _ he was. Neither, both, one or the other? The words were practically interchangeable. Finally came a man that confused him, speaking in a way that made it hard to tell if he was creepy, friendly, maybe both? Thankfully, that man didn’t call himself a father, rather, an uncle.

What the hell was an uncle?

Loqi still never received an answer, being rushed away to what weren’t tests but  _ trials _ , though designed still to test… something, Verstael talked too fast for him to keep up. A sword was handed to him, and he was told to attack a pair of large, scorpion-resembling animals inside what’d he eventually learn was the main training room.

Instead, one of them immediately lunged at him.

What happened after that was a blur, but he remembered standing between their dead bodies with blood dripping off his sword, consumed by panic, and his veins pulsing a strange purple. According to his fathers, that was a wonderful thing, and after a few more trials with the same results, they rewarded him with a room, red and white clothes, and a title.

“Prince.”

His uncle explained that he was to become the next emperor after Aldercapt died, stating his unique ability to channel and control daemon blood--while staying sane--as the reason why. Loqi didn’t really understand it--he sure didn’t feel sane after slaughtering so many creatures--but his uncle told him to relax, being a prince was an  _ honor _ . He was so  _ lucky _ to be born with such powers, and now into royalty.

For years, he believed it.

The tower had enough room for a bookshelf he filled to the brim with anything that interested him, whether it be art or bugs or robotics. Outside a schedule of classes, meetings, and a specific time to retire for the night, he was allowed to roam part of the palace, spending most of his time in its sprawling library. What few people he met were generally nice, at least a step up from his ‘parents’. Aranea visited on occasion and would tell of the missions she had while she was away, and he viewed Ravus as a role model, being both a prince and commanding an entire army! Although his attitude was something not to be desired.

Despite how ‘luxurious’ his life was, Loqi still found himself wondering if it could be better. Mainly, he wished the rules weren’t so harsh. No talking at all, keep perfectly composed at all times, wear only what is given, never be late, never eat more than what is given or outside specified times, and most importantly: never enter the laboratory outside injections.

Like any rule forbidden access to a place, it only made him want to explore it more.

Verstael often mumbled about ‘subjects’ and ‘failures’ and ‘MT’, and Loqi wondered if it was related to all those figures he saw in identical cells. He couldn’t speak, but astrals did he want to ask who they were, why they looked like them, why weren’t they princes if he had powers? If they’re all the same, why doesn’t he see them around? Why are they created in containment cells, and yet others said he was ‘born’ instead?

Eventually, he discovered a word for them: brothers.

Ravus said he was the brother to his sister Lunafreya, describing it as simply being related to someone who may or may not look like you. From Loqi’s experience, being a brother meant protecting your siblings, as Ravus often did, and doing anything to make sure they were okay. He wanted to do the same, but he never saw his brothers around.

He wished he could ask why.

Though as day after day passed, he never saw himself around. Whispers of ‘clones’ and ‘experiments’ and ‘MT’ echoed through the palace, and all he could do was assume it was about his brothers. What had they done wrong--had they woken up? Wasn’t that a good thing? What did MT mean, was it the name of the ‘experiment’? Every time he entered a room where it was being discussed people stopped talking, and he had the growing feeling that it was something he wasn’t meant to know.

Which only made him want to know even more.

That need for answers kept him up at night, distracted him during meetings and made it harder to focus on his classes. Thanks to that, his free time dwindled and he had to spend more of his time either fixing his mistakes, stuck his room, or--and his least favorite of all--getting ‘remedial injections’.

As Verstael and Aldercapt alternated scolding and insulting him for his mistakes, saying how disappointed they were in their little prince, Loqi found himself hoping that his brothers didn’t have to go through the same things he did. Whatever they did, it had to be better than clutching his head during the aftereffects of injections, insults being drilled into his head, and what freedom he had being taken away.

 

Eventually, combat training turned from fighting actual creatures or dueling a human instructor to fighting… robot humans? That’s the best description he had, as they were covered head to toe in armor and had rather uncanny masks. They were faster, tougher, and harder than his previous combatants, and Loqi went from excelling at fighting to barely getting by after just one session. Channeling his daemon power didn’t make it any easier, hell it seemed the fights got even harder. Ardyn reassured him that they weren’t  _ programmed _ to kill, but as he suffered stab wounds, deep slashes, and eventually  _ gunshot wounds _ , he was starting to think the difference between ‘kill’ and ‘heavily damage’ didn’t exist.

When Verstael scolded him for the eighth time that week after injecting even more daemon blood into him, which did its usual job of giving him a mindsplitting headache, he mumbled something about ‘being too weak even for the weakest of MTs.’

Loqi nearly broke the ‘no talking’ rule to ask him to repeat that.

_ He was fighting his brothers. _

For the next few sessions he put all his focus into parrying and dodging, while moving closer and closer to his MT trainer. That mask had to be hiding his own face, and though he might not be ready to face that fact he had to find out for himself. Parry, dodge, dodge, parry, and yet something always threw him off, whether he tripped over his own feet or recklessly dived forward only to be stabbed. After weeks of failure after failure after failure, he finally pinned his opponent down after slicing off both arms and disarming them. Daemon blood dripped their stumps before vanishing into thin air, and as Loqi tore of their mask he was prepared to finally be proven-

Wrong.

Underneath the mask was empty space surrounded by wires and circuits. There were points where the mask was held on, not a face it covered. The MT flailed its legs as it tried to escape, and after a few seconds of shocked silence he drove a dagger into their chest, watching their legs kick before stopping completely. Footsteps neared behind him, and he had to be dragged up by the collar to get off the robotic corpse.

“What’s the matter, kid? I told ya you were fightin’ robots for the past few months, did you think otherwise?”

He wanted to shrug, smile, do  _ something _ to try and brush the question off, like he usually did with anything Ardyn asked. Instead, he only shook his head.

“Good to know. It’s dangerous to think anything but the truth.”

That night, the world he had in his head shattered into pieces before fading away into nothingness.

For months he had thought he was onto something, that he had siblings he wanted to protect, that he wasn’t the only one of his kind, that there was a chance he wasn’t  _ alone _ .

He was wrong.

He was lucky to be alive, to be a prince at all, while all the other MTs turned into daemons for him to slay. If he hadn’t been lucky, he’d be the one the  _ real _ prince would fight, although he wouldn’t really have an identity at all, being a daemon. If he hadn’t miraculously been created with enough strength to control his daemonic powers, he would’ve been a  _ pawn _ and not a  _ prince _ .

Suddenly, being a prince wasn’t so honorable or wonderful at all.

 

Not even a month later, news got around that the laboratory had been broken into and a subject stolen away. Cameras were checked, arguments were had, and multiple meetings were scheduled to discuss the sudden event.

When asked if he heard anything about the event, Loqi shook his head. A lie it was, but regardless if he heard the news or not, he didn’t care. It didn’t affect him, so why should he?

Subjects were disposable. He, hopefully, was not.

Thankfully, his fathers believed him, and even seemed  _ relieved _ that he didn’t know anything. It didn’t matter why they were, he was glad to know he finally did something right for once. The following weeks were unusually calm for him, perhaps he was even blessed as training got easier with time, he had more free time to spend in the library, and he found himself with a little extra on his plate at every meal. Despite his frazzled state of being, Verstael even seemed  _ nicer _ , a huge contrast to his usual demeanor, or maybe that was the daemon blood talking, he couldn’t tell.

If anything, he hoped his fathers and friends managed to get their subject back so they could relax too.

 

A decade later, more news broke out that he was unable to access, as conversations were kept well out of his path and himself kept busy with studies and meetings. He knew people were talking, his ears strained to decipher the faint whispers he passed on occasion. No matter how hard he tried, though, he got nothing. Maybe it was a good thing, but even after all this time his natural curiosity couldn’t be stopped.

However, luck was on his side, as he woke up one day with a newspaper at his door and a note attached to it.

_ “Huge meeting at 11, but your morning classes are cancelled. Managed to grab one of these for you, thought you’d be interested. Hide it well or trash it when you’re done, pipsqueak. It’s your fault if you’re caught. ~ A.H.” _

Carefully listening for any sound of footsteps, Loqi picked the newspaper off the ground and hurried back to his bed, getting underneath his blanket for added soundproofing. In large, bold text were the words  _ Breaking News: The Prince’s New Friend(?) _ . Underneath was a photo of what had to be the Prince of Lucis, the vague descriptions of ‘wears nothing but black’ and ‘looks like an ass’ matching. Next to him was someone he didn’t know, with a wristband over his right wrist, bright blonde hair, and blue-purple eyes.

… 

_ Wait a fucking- _

Loqi tore off the fingerless sleeve he wore over his left arm, staring at his barcode and glancing back and forth between it and the wristband in the picture.

No, that was a stretch. Simply a fashion statement, it didn’t mean anything.

The hair, though. From what little information he was given about Insomnia and its inhabitants, there were far more people with black hair than blond. Even so, hair that bright? That couldn’t be natural--it had to be dyed--unless--

Unless it was a result of being born--or maybe  _ created _ \--with a little extra something, like he was.

It was only supported by the fact that the man had  _ purple  _ in his eyes. Purple eyes were definitely not natural, he’s memorized enough books to know that. Of course, maybe they were contacts--but they blended in so naturally with the the rest of the eye, and why would someone already so different want to bring more attention to themselves--unless it was  _ something they couldn’t change? _

Not to mention the security breach a decade ago, resulting in the loss of a subject. Surely there wouldn’t have been so much fuss if the subject was like most of the others, average and best used as daemon fuel to power magitek cores.

_ Unless they had some sort of unusual powers. _

**_Maybe even powers that would give them the importance of a_ ** **_Prince_ ** **_._ **

Loqi could barely breathe from how fast his heart was beating, as the corners of his mouth twitched before he started full on  _ beaming _ . His hands shook with barely contained excitement, and he had to remind himself about the rule of silence to stop himself from  _ laughing _ .

An entire decade he had given up on his theory, on his idea that he wasn’t alone and that he had what could be considered a brother. All after one discovery that was  _ nothing _ compared to this. All because he let a little disappointment crush his dreams because he had been wrong about  _ one thing _ .

Now, now he was right about  _ something _ .

He had another family member, someone who was  _ living _ and  _ breathing _ and very much  _ not a daemon _ . Someone of equal standing in order to have his parents  _ freaking out _ about it, someone that maybe, just maybe he’d meet one day--perhaps at the peace treaty, seeing as they were friends with the Prince of  _ Lucis _ .

He had a  _ brother _ , and most importantly,  _ he had been right  _ **_all along_ ** .

**Author's Note:**

> I might make this a full out series, no promises.  
> Apologies to my Persona 5 fans for leaving y'all for a year and coming back with a completely different fandom.  
> In my defense: FFXV Good.


End file.
